nachtrabe / Baduk Blog

Sub-page of Nachtrabe

Baduk (바둑) Blog

This is for my ongoing progress in the world of Baduk.

Table of contents Table of diagrams
Position at move 84, nachtrabe is black.
Yay me!
Position at move 80
Final Result: B+15.5
There's a weakness...
There's (still) a weakness...
seki
alive? alive !
Game with Seqi (18k KGS).
ko?
ko
Not seki: Dead
Life?

3 January 2005

Baduk Reference

In an effort to make my life easier when working with Korean books and to try to encourage a local Korean player to give more lectures, I have been compiling a [ext] table of terms in Korean, Japanese, and English (PDF).

A few notes:

2 January 2005

Took today off.

Today I didn't play a game for a change. I've played 30 games in the past 7 days (21 wins, if that counts for much of anything), so I kind of feel entitled. Still I managed to do some work on L&D problems and review a few of my past games.

It has been a month since I haven't played a game online, and even then I've played games in person on those days, so I don't know how long it has been since I truly took a day off from playing.

News of players I follow

I was pleased to see Rui Naiwei won (by resignation) the first title match round of the 6th Female Myeongin. Cho HyeYeon swept last year's 2-0 and so is defending this year.

Not, mind you, that I want Cho HyeYeon? to do poorly--I am quite pleased to see her doing so well and really hope to see her contending for the open titles soon. This time around though, in this title, I want to see Rui Naiwei take it :)

Cho HyeYeon? was the 3rd youngest person to turn pro out of the Hankuk Kiwon (the two others being Lee Changho and Cho Hunhyun) and is currently one of two of the highest ranked women (the other one being Park Jiun) out of that system.

The second game will be on 4 January 2005.

31 December 2004

Broken ladders.

[Diagram]

Position at move 84, nachtrabe is black.

I have been in a handful of games where there has been an extended broken ladder. When I misread the ladder and played it out (it happened once), I resigned immediately, but I haven't been so fortunate with my opponents, many of whom continue even after misreading ladders as long as 21 steps.

Some even seem to use it as a tactic, and I know at least one person who could read the ladder and followed it anyways hoping I would chicken out.

Thankfully, these games have all ended in my victory--either by resignation or by a lot of points--but when faced with a broken ladder I am often confused how to go about taking the best advantage of it.

Should I take the cut points immediately? Is there a "best methodology" for taking them out to keep from making my opponent thick where I don't cut? Is such even a problem?

15k

Hopefully for keeps this time.

Good at what, exactly?

Despite being rated at 15k on KGS I seem to play at around 11-13k at our local club, depending on who I am playing (there's a 7k there I am going to go down to a 3 stone handicap against soon; and an 11-12k that I play evenly against).

So I played the 7k in an even game. I was told after by another player (2k?) that my "whole board thinking" was probably better than my opponents, but that my tactics sucked and I was getting ripped to shreds locally. It also highlighted that my analysis capability for L&D problems is... well, pretty much nonexistent.

Probably from not doing enough problems just in general. I kind of think of L&D problems like doing homework.

So in response I've started working my way through ''Tesuji'' in the hopes that it will improve my reading and my local "not getting sliced to ribbons" skills. We'll see where I go after that (maybe the rest of Life and Death), but I've been kind of itching to get started with a couple of books on Haengma...

28 December 2004

What not to study?

There is a player in Louisiana, I believe it is Dr. Lee, who believes that amateurs up to the dan ranks shouldn't study the endgame. He claims that, when you are making multiple 20-30 point mistakes in the middle game, the handful of points you might get from studying the endgame simply aren't worth it.

At [ext] Sensei's Library and elsewhere, such as by some peoople at my local go club, I have been told that one shouldn't study joseki, or that an individual shouldn't study joseki until s/he hits 10k.

I've seen people go so far as to say that [ext] "If there is a person out there that beats you at nine stones the study of fuseki is useless".

I've seen lots of people say [ext] to postpone the study/memorization of pro games.

Some say that one shouldn't even start on a 19x19 board until s/he is competent on a 9x9.

About the only thing everyone agrees that everyone needs to study are L&D problems, but even here I see advice vary (especially among amateurs, from what I have seen pros seem to consistently say that one should focus on "easy" problems).

At the lower kyu ranks not only does there seem to be no real consensus on what to study (much less how to study), but there seems to be no real consensus on what not to study, but with a lot of people believing that you should postpone studying just about everything it seems until you are "good enough to play."

The strongest player at my club gave this piece of advice, and I've taken it to heart: "study what you enjoy until you plateau, and then break down and study what you don't enjoy until you overcome that next hurdle."

Is there a point to this rant? Probably not, but if you read this let me know your thoughts :)


Nathan: First of all, I've enjoyed reading your blog - it goes to show we can all learn from each other, no matter what the rank difference is. You seem dedicated and have great enthusiasm, which is essential for making Shodan (which I'm sure you'll get to one day!).

To address the above, I disagree with Dr. Lee - the endgame is worth studying. If you make 5-10 moves in the endgame which lose say, 5 points each, that's alot of points to lose! Endgame tesuji is not essential (until you're closer to Shodan) but generally knowing where the biggest points are is important.

Before reaching 10 kyu, you should at least know a handful of star-point joseki such as the invasion at 3-3. After that, I'd say study joseki which may arise from the fuseki you like to play.

I think there is benefit from going over pro-games to get the feel for the flow of the stones. This might be difficult as a double-digit kyu at first, but once past 10kyu, I see no harm if it is helpful. I know from my experience I've learned alot playing through pro games. I recommend players who's style you like.

Studying lots of easy tsumego seems to be universal from the pros. 'Nuff said!

It is important to enjoy what you are studying, or else you won't learn anything. And BTW, the above advice is distilled from my pro-level sensei, so there should be some truth to it ;-)

I'd be happy to review some of your games for you if you like, just leave me a message on my homepage here. Just remember this when you are 7dan and I need my games reviewed :)

nachtrabe: Hi Nathan! Thanks for providing your insight and for your offer, I will certainly take you up on it. :-) I'm glad to know someone is enjoying this exercise besides me.

27 December 2004

Losing Games

Well, I am on one of those Losing Streaks from hell. I just can't. seem. to. win. It happened right about the time KGS decided I was 15k. Recently I've seen some signs of it breaking (getting a game reviewed by a 6k helped a lot), but I still am having difficulty winning.

My play has become "listless" and empty, my moves seem less motivated. I've been taking short breaks where I put the game out of my mind entirely, maybe I need to take a longer break...

Then there is also [ext] David Mechner's advice which I've found good in general: when I am a 10k, no one is going to care how many games I lost as a 16k. When I am a 5d, no one is going to care how many games I lost as a 5k, much less a 10k or a 16k.

Now I just have to keep telling myself that...

In Game L&D

[Diagram]

Yay me!

This is a problem I solved in my game that I was proud of myself for getting. Okay, so it isn't all that impressive--just a gote seki--but I managed to read it out step-by-step before playing it, so I am hoping that this represents an improvement in my reading ability (I never used to really look for making seki). Maybe my time with the Korean Problem Academy L&D problems is paying off :-)

I should note that my opponent decided on the seki rather than the ko (W4 at a).

17 December 2004

14 k down, 16 k left to go.

Made 16k today on KGS. This time it happened overnight while I was asleep, though I knew it was coming soon.

Observations on climbing in rank:

14 December 2004

A badger in its den.

Well that was interesting.

[Diagram]

Position at move 80

I had badly misplayed the beginning of a game. By move 80 I had 23 stones that were either already captured or in positions where they would end up as prisoners--most of them in positions where they wouldn't even give opportunities later in the game.

By move 100 I had a center-facing wall on the 'F' line that was breached by a white spear thrust, a large moyo (only 6 white stones had been played on or to the east of the centerline), one area in the southeast corner that was pretty solid, and the rest of the moyo was wide open to invasion. I was sure that I had lost, but decided to play it out a little ways--I did have a huge moyo after all, and I do love to fight...

[Diagram]

Final Result: B+15.5

Some moves later, I get a lucky break--my opponent makes a mistake and lets me cut a 1 point jump, separating her spear thrust (and her living group) from the bulk of her stones inside my moyo (most of which are a part of a floating weak group).

This got me reflecting on the level of our play and how it changes even during the course of a game. When we get ahead in a game by a lot--such as the player in my "honor" post below did or I'm sure my opponent did in this game (awww, this guy is no good, look at how badly I'm abusing him!)--we have a tendency to become complacent. This complacency is deadly--underestimating your enemy is a good way to end up slaughtered in both real life and in the game of Baduk. On the other hand, when someone is playing poorly and and seriously behind many people have a tendency to "crank things up a notch."

Games in those situations are analogous to fighting a cornered animal--the person you are going up against suddenly becomes extremely dangerous, and failure to recognize such is a good way to end up losing. I see both sides of that a lot in my games, and it really does affect how you play and whether you win.

I should mention that I've lost to this more than I've won to it, this is just the most recent example ^.^;; I think I need to adjust my mindset that until time runs out, my opponent resigns, or both of us pass my opponent should be treated as lethal.

13 December 2004

Idiotic Error of the Day

[Diagram]

There's a weakness...

Well, I lost a game because of a stupid mistake. I spotted the weakness....

[Diagram]

There's (still) a weakness...

...and then decided to replace one weakness with another (rather than create eye-space by playing at a, but nooooo, I couldn't do something fancy like that).

unkx80: Time to train your intuitions on shapes?
Tderz: Black b (better than c, because no ko threat b) must (will !) become your second nature.

[Diagram]

seki

Now, I read this out to be either a ko for life or a seki. My opponent decided on the seki.


[Diagram]

alive? alive !

Tderz: You yourself have the option for life too ... W4 = BC

 = 2 points in gote (perhaps better than zero points (seki) in Sente)

That was enough to shift the points to my opponents favor. If my opponent had gone for a ko I might have won the game in the ko fight. A seki was guaranteed.

Live and learn. Now the trick will be not doing it next time ^.^;;

I should mention that the only reason I got into that position was because I committed a classic d'ohsuji and ignored a threat that was worth 4 or 5 points (assuming I had defended correctly) to play a 1 point half-sente move somewhere else on the board.

Honor

Honor is a very big thing for me in life, but it is one of those things that is hard to define. A code of conduct, yes, but there is more to it than that--something both intrinsic and intangible to the nature of Honor. At the same time cultures can each have their own individual codes of honor that are independent and even mutually exclusive to one another. It hasn't ever even been the same between Korea, China, and Japan.

I was reflecting on this because earlier today I watched a game between two Swedish players (he is 17k and played white, "she" refers to black for the sake of clarity and is 18k, H1 game on KGS). One person had so completely dominated the game that the KGS score estimator said she was 121.5 moku behind. Most of that territory was wrapped up in the center, mind you, where he had strong influence on most sides.

There is a Chinese proverb that says that "corners are gold, sides are silver, center is grass." I tend to overemphasize it, but there is still a lot of truth in it. My experience has been that center territory is very fragile and difficult to defend when it exists at all. Anyway, enough 17k speculation.

She made a last-ditch effort to win and did what I would consider a shobute--a do-or-die invasion to the center. This wasn't deep in the endgame--territory hadn't been completely sealed off yet though they were probably in what most would consider yose. Still, an invasion was still viable and I wouldn't even exactly call it speculative, since there was a lot of room there to live in (an 8x10 loosely enclosed box without a stone in sight except for one of hers).

That said, it has been my experience that a floating center invasion generally very tricky, and with proper play he could have probably blocked her. He couldn't defend properly and she went on to find life by connecting with a small center facing group that was trapped (and presumed dead) against one side of the center. By bringing the two groups together she found eye space where none had existed before.

Having miraculously secured life, she began to press outward and managed to reduce the center to virtually nothing and through aggressive-but-reasonable play exploited some weaknesses to expand her corners and sides.

Final result: Black won by 5.5 moku at move 257. An impressive turnaround from a game that had been thoroughly lost at move 89.

Afterwards the loser went off ranting about how terribly he played in that game and, after his opponent had left (who I felt obligated to tell that she played well and it wasn't all about him) talked about how she "had no honor" and how "unhonorable sic?" she was and how he lost all will to play after such "unhonorable" moves.

Now, I generally consider speculative invasions to be annoying and a waste of my time when my opponent does them, and I admit I've berated myself after if one succeeds, but at the most extreme I consider them impolite. Not dishonorable. I have lost the will to play before, but it is generally around move 300 when we were busy reducing my groups to one-point eyes and not by move 99 before the full endgame has actually begun. Suffice it to say, I thought the White player was way way out of line and simply making excuses.

Anyways, enough of my rambling. This all got me thinking (back to the original point) about honor and play. There are certainly rules of honor in war, and rules of honor in personal conflict, and Baduk is analogous to both, so what is a suitable "code of honor" for this game? Would such a code relate entirely to your behavior off the board--perhaps in the details of how you treat your opponent, or not visibly losing your temper--or would it also extend to how one plays? Are there "honorable" and "dishonorable" ways of playing as well? What moves, exactly, could be considered "dishonorable"?

Any thoughts?

Brent: Personally, I would define dishonorable action as "doing something outside the established parameters of conflict in order to gain an unfair advantage". So, for example, if you had agreed to a sword fight, pulling out a gun and shooting your adversary would be dishonorable (remember that scene in Indiana Jones? Although technically he did not agree to a sword fight, so...). As far as Go is concerned, then, something like a sleeve tesuji would be dishonorable; but making invasions (even speculative ones) is well within the rules of the game and therefore quite honorable. Now, of course, one could argue that in addition to the established technical rules of Go, there are additional, mostly unspoken "rules" that govern "polite" play, e.g. resigning when you are obviously far behind, not making obviously doomed invasions that only work if your opponent blunders miserably, etc. But since these really only amount to cultural customs and not rules, I think you can call them impolite, perhaps, but not dishonorable.

PS We should play sometime. (=

ilan: Man, I am envious, I live for games like that! Please tell me the person's name so I can play him with an unrated account. On a less personal note, I should point out that at the 17K level, players do not usually understand what is definite territory, so the invasion was very likely not too speculative. I recall an even game I played with a 14K (probably equivalent to KGS 17K now) some time ago, and it was going sort of OK for him until I successfully invaded all his moyos. After the game, he made a reference to my 'slimy' invasions, as if to say that a moyo is definite territory. If you post the game, then this can be verified. I note that you are referring to Baduk in this diary. I have been playing almost exclusively on Dashn for the last couple of months, so I am used to having every single territory challenged, and vice-versa. Finally, I should say that I still have no understanding of 'influence' as used above.

12 December 2004

Life and Death Problem of the Day

[Diagram]

Game with Seqi (18k KGS).

So this came up, where I played the marked white stone. I had read it either turning into a seki or a ko-for-life (either of which I was fine with--picnic ko for me because I'd be back where I started if I lost). My opponent immediately resigned though and declared that it was a "25k mistake" that put him in that position.

It does look tough to live without a ko and not in a seki, but I'm not yet convinced it is impossible given perfect play... Will have to look at it later, I can't think straight right now (input is also welcome, if anyone reads this).

As far as wins/losses go, I haven't gone immediately to a losing streak, but I am not winning 80% of my games either. My games are tougher (though I'm not sure how much of that is mental) and smaller mistakes are deciding them. We'll see how this holds up with time.


[Diagram]

ko?

Brent (19k KGS): Here's my attempt... it's probably wrong, but that's how you learn, right? (= After B1, if White plays W2 at B3, then B3 at W2 lives. So W2, and then Black must connect at B3, otherwise White can play there and seki results. Then White destroys an eye with W4, followed by B5. W6 prevents double ko and then B7 starts a ko for the life of the Black group.

What do you think?

[Diagram]

ko

Coconuts: Your diagram looks pretty good, Brent, but there is no reason for Black to give White the advantage of capturing first. White must start the ko at 8 herself, and Black takes first. Black need only play B7 to start the ko if White wins the game with a seki (achieved by White playing the 1-1 point). As for W4 at B3...

[Diagram]

Not seki: Dead

I thought this was seki at first, too, but unfortunately for black, he is dead. Black cannot play on either of white's liberties without dying, but white can play inside black's corner eye to capture.

[Diagram]

Life?

nachtrabe: Those are basically the solutions I came up with. This is one problem I came across though when I wondered about B5...


"Better in other areas"

Something the strongest player who attends Wed night at my local club said that when he played other people at his level, he would get cocky because his strength is in the opening and so he would often play a stronger opening, and he has to remind himself that his opponents are the same rank as he is because they are stronger in other areas to compensate.

This is a good lesson about how an opponent who is nominally the same overall skill may not have the same set of strengths and weaknesses, and it was something I was strongly reminded of in my game earlier. He played a non-traditional fuseki, letting me do whatever I wanted, but by the end it was a close game who's results would depend on the rest of the endgame and if I could keep sente.

11 December 2004

17k

Just made 17k on KGS, now the difficulty of my games should increase a notch and I'll probably start losing again (I had been on a winning streak, winning 40 of my last 50 ranked games).

Most people seem to have fallen a lot with the ratings adjustment--I fell a little, but not appreciably.

I have a friend who fell two stones, but we were playing H1 (no komi) games and I could consistently beat her, so she needed a handicap (she was also on a losing streak against her other opponents). This is a Good Thing™, now she will get to play people who actually are her own strength and break her losing streak. Of course, the way our ranks our situated now she is going to be getting a five stone handicap next time she plays me (she fell another stone after I beat her with a three stone handicap, then I went up to 17k...) o_o;;

Janice Kim: Life and Death and Tenuki

After hearing Janice Kim say that you should always try to not respond to your opponents moves but look elsewhere on the board, no matter what your strength (her analogy was to compare Go to a giant game of chicken), I have been making a conscientious effort to "play away" and tenuki more often in my games. Still can't quite bring myself to do it as often as I probably should be, but it does seem to help my game a lot.

She also said that the "right level" of problem for Life & Death study is the kind that you can solve "almost immediately" when you look at it, because those are the problems that tend to occur in games and you need to develop your instincts for recognizing them. She went on to say that, even for high-dan professionals, the right level would be "Graded Go Problems For Beginners, Volume 4". This made me take another good look at the problems rated for my level at the Korean Problem Academy and I have been using them for practice in recognizing basic shapes. I'm also looking at the Level 2 set, since I'm not all that far away and most of the problems there fall into that same category of things I can solve "instantly."

My theory on this is as follows:

8 December 2004

Updated the SL page here with snazzy stuff such as a table of contents. I kind of feel foolish, putting this much work into a page when I am so lowly in terms of my play--one of those "finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity" things. I suppose if it keeps me working at it though and focused on the goal, it will work out fine in the end.

Recently I've been winning most of my games on KGS and am getting close to the 17k mark. I have also been told by several opponents that I "seem much stronger than 18k." My guess is that my winning streak will stop when I hit 17k and that I'll start a losing streak until I improve again.


This is a copy of the living page "nachtrabe / Baduk Blog" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]
StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About